


They did not...

by Yra



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad Memories, Writing As A Therapy, alcoholic parent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22073980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yra/pseuds/Yra
Summary: ... break me. Sometimes I feel like it would be easier if they did.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	They did not...

**Author's Note:**

> As I was watching RWBY for the first time and discovering the Schnee family situation, I felt a pain in my chest each time something new was revealed about them. Three children victims of a manipulative parent and a depressive one... I felt a particular kinship with Winter. I am too an older sister to a brother and sister, and all of us have lived with an abusive and manipulative mother, and my brother and I share an alcoholic father. This is really just me being depressed as fuck, being bitter about what happened to my siblings, how my mother managed to separate all of us from our uncles and aunts, how abusive she was... I hate Jacques Schnee with all of the hate I have for my own mother, and I hate Willow for what she has allowed to happen to her children with the same hate I have for everyone who noticed something was off and wrng in my home as a child and never lifted a finger to change it.  
> I won't tell you guys to enjoy, because this is written purely out of my desire to let out all of the rage and sorrow that have accumulated in me, all the bitterness that I feel on a day to day basis that is exacerbated with the Holidays. So yeah, here's a small dose of depression.

" _Winter, what's going on?"_

_"Nothing, General."_

_He let out a small breath._

_"Take the day off. You are looking as depressed as Qrow recently, I know Yuletide is not easy on you and..."_

_"I am fine, general! I can do my work!"_

_A stern look was all it took to make me bow my head._

_"Go home."_

_I nodded once and departed, my back straight, shoulders back, the perfect figure of a proud, strong confident soldier._

_But not necessarily that of a strong human, and I was starting to learn this the hard way._

Walking around Atlas was always a thing that brought back memories of a time long past, a time when she was the heir to the Schnee Dust Company. A time when she thought that the most important thing was to finally do something that her father approved off. So she got strong, became an incredible fencer and even more incredible student in all aspect, learned to use Dust in a way to become an extraordinary fighter, a one woman army. The entire military looked up to her skills and grace.

Her father always saw flaws in what she was doing. It was never good enough, never perfect enough. 

She stops dead in front of the school she had gone to before going to the Atlas Academy

_I run home to my father, my most recent mathematical test in hands. I know, I just know, that father is gonna be pleased this time. I look at the 100% written in red ink at the top of the first sheet and smile, so happy. In my bag are a few other exams, Atlas and Mantle Political and Historical Studies, Fencing, Dust Usage, Forging... all held the same 100% mark. The reason why I was so happy about this test in my hands, however, was because last time I took one, I only got 97%. My mother, for once out of her room and not smelling like the bottles that I kept finding in the kitchen, had been very proud of me._

_My father had made sure to set me straight, telling how disappointing that I couldn't even get such an easy question right._

_"Well, this time he WILL be proud" I think while I_ _walk on the path to the house, then on the carpet inside and up the stairs to my father's_ _study, my hands clutching the paper in my hands nervously. I pause in front of the door, waiting for Weiss and Whitley to get there. We always had tests on the same days, all classes in the school did, from the 5 years old to the 13 years old, and we all have to report how results with our father as soon as we get home from school._

_I can't help but remember the last time I was here, with all my bright red 100% and tat one 97%. I remember telling him that I had gotten the best grade in my whole class, in my whole age group, even, but that had not been satisfactory to him._

_"Not this time, this time he will be proud, I know he will, I know he will..." I repeat to myself while getting the stack of exams from my backpack._

_I then hear two sets of small and smaller legs walking up to my side, all clutching papers in their hands too._

_"Hello Winter!" say the high voices of my younger siblings. I smile at them and hug them._

_"Hello Weiss, hello Whitley!"_

_"Such displays of affection are children's behaviors, Winter, as such, I would ask you to abstain from them. Surely at ten years old, you understand this... In any case, you may all enter."_

_My father's stern voice brings me back to the reality and I straighten my back and bow my head slightly._

_"I am sorry, father, this will not happen again."_

_He looks at me for a moment and lets us in, closing the door behind us. We all stand in front of his desk, the paper in our hands._

_"Whitley, you first."_

_As expected, his results are... less than satisfactory. Barely reaching the grades necessary to pass his classes. Father sighs._

_"Well, Whitley, it would seem that you are to spend your whole evenings in your room once again. From the moment that you are back from school to the moment that you are to sleep. You can go without food tonight, not that you need it."_

_Tears probably fill my younger brother's eyes, I can see his still slightly chubby fists clench, the way his whole body tenses and then the screams begin. A butler enters and grabs my brother to drag him to his room, holding him with hands strong enough to leave bruises on his arms and wherever he grabs him to keep him from moving. I don't look back as the screams are muffled by the door of the study closing behind us. I can see Weiss struggling to keep her eyes fixed in front of her in my peripheral vision._

_"Weiss, the papers."_

_She hands him her papers, one 99%, everything else 100%._

_"Satisfactory, do remember how to write Vytal festival from now on."_

_"Yes, father."_

_"Winter."_

_I hand the stack of papers to him. He looks them over, page by page, criticizing my calligraphy here and there, adding precisions to answers he deems to not be good enough despite being accurate. He pauses at the last page of my math exam, looking at something with a lot of intensity._

_"Well, it seems like you still haven't done good enough."_

_"I got perfect scores everywhere!"_

_"Yes, you did, but what is this?"_

_I look at the bonus question, which I didn't answer correctly. My heart sinks._

_"This is a bonus question. It was a higher grade question and the teacher said it was fine if we didn't get it because we never saw it cla..."_

_"What have I said about excuses?"_

_I stop talking, keeping my back straight and neck straight while looking at the exam, not meeting my father's eyes._

_"You shall bring me perfections if you still want to be my heiress, nothing short from that. I will arrange that you get all the texts books you will ever need in your education at the school you are currently attending and I expect you to have gone through all of them by the end of the year."_

_We are in September. I had three and a half months._

_"I will have read them at least once by then, father."_

_He dismisses us, and we go silently. We would probably not see our father until our next exams._

She shook her head, trying to get the memories out of her head. This was nothing, she had seen death, had killed with her own hands, this was nothing, nothing to fear, nothing to affect her, she was fine, everything was fine...

She walked some more, aimlessly, until she saw a bar. Maybe just a drink...? 

She entered the place, it was a fairly classy bar, mostly empty. She asked for a strawberry daiquiri, sipping at it slowly and playing with the little pink umbrella in it.

The door opens suddenly and a loud group of people enters, cheering and telling everyone to have a good yuletide. She finishes her drink and pays for it along with a tip and prepares to leave when one of the cheering woman in the groups drops her glass and starts cursing loudly at it.

_A bottle breaking, her mother screaming._

_"Was that the only reason you married me, Jacques? My fucking name?"_

_Another glass breaks._

_An expensive sounding crystal punch bowl, or what she thinks is a crystal punch bowl._

_"Calm yourself Willow, you are making a scene."_

_"Ah, yes, a scene, you are right, I AM making a FUCKING SCENE."_

_Another plate, some more glasses._

_This goes on for nights, new dishes and glasses are bought every day and everyday mother breaks them and throws them at our father. Sometimes I hear high heels in the stairs and hallway leading to our rooms. I always make sure to breathe evenly when she enters, my back to her and eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, and I hear mother entering, opening drawers, taking clothes and putting them in suitcases along with my weapon. Then I hear her put everything back and she kisses my cheek in my fake slumber, an unfamiliar and unpleasant smell coming from her breath._

_Tonight is different. She was breaking stuff again, I was sitting in my bed, and suddenly I heard a slap and a gasp on pain from my mother._

_"You... you... how DARE YOU????"_

_More bottles breaking, my father raising his voice for the first time since this started._

_"How dare I? Well perhaps because I never loved you you stupid bitch, the only thing decent about you was your name and now that I control the company, who cares what the fuck you think of me."_

_"I LOVED YOU!"_

_The screams go on and on and I feel my breath shortening in my chest, I feel a slight tremble in my limbs... and the door opens._

_"W-w-w-winter?"_

_Weiss, trying not to cry. I open my arms and she jumps on my bed and hides her head in my neck, her arms around my torso as I close mine around her shoulder._

_'I need to be strong, for her, I can't cry...'_

_Another set on smaller arms encircle me, and I shift my arms to hold my two siblings protectively in my arms. I hum soothing songs and sounds, stroking their hair, anything to try to make them stop crying while the screams keep on, rising and lowering in volume and intensity but never. Stopping._

_'I need to be strong for them, I need to be the strongest, I can't show them that I am sad too, I need to be strong, strong, strong, STRONG...'_

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much all of the italics are things similar that have happened to me or that I have seen happen to one of my siblings. I do push some things to extremes, mostly whatever is influenced by money and power, which my family definitely did not have. The textbooks from higher years in school, for example, and the butler, but everything else in that scene has happened. People telling me to go home because I was too distracted to do anything productive. I really just need a place to vent all of this stuff because therapy is too fucking expensive and I'm broke as fuck and writing helps me process shit.


End file.
